I am one lucky man.

Lucky because I was born a few generations shy of being on the other side of the Mexican border. Lucky because I was granted opportunities far too many of my relatives weren’t. Lucky because I have the job of reporting the news of a minuscule West Texas town and meeting amazing people everyday who; with their stories, make a big impact on my small life.

I am especially lucky to have had the opportunity to meet a Mexican Immigrant who, for the past one hundred years, never stopped living the American Dream even while she was in no way, by an average American’s definition, truly one of us. 

In 1915, at the age of six, a small child named Isaura didn’t want to get left behind.

In 1999, at the age of 90, she faced a similar dilemma.

Isaura has spent the past 64 years living in a bedroom community outside of Lubbock, TX, as an illegal immigrant. Prior to her current location, she lived in Hale Center, TX.

However, she was born in 1909 in a small Mexican village.

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the civil war that followed left many Mexicans homeless and struggling. Isaura remembers, as a child, hiding in a basement with relatives as the generals searched houses and villages to over take.

“We were watching ‘The Alamo,’ once,” Isaura’s daughter, Frances said. “She began wiping tears from her eyes and said, ‘when I was a little girl, those men scared me.’” She spoke of the war and the generals that kept her and her family hidden during her first six years on earth. 

The revolution displaced many rural Mexican communities; some have estimated that nearly one in ten Mexicans immigrated into the United States because of the abundant wealth offered to many of them in manufacturing and agricultural opportunities due to WWI.

“She remembers men in red garments coming to their home,” Frances said. “She moved to the US through Laredo with her grandmother in 1915.”

Isaura said in Spanish, however, that due to a traumatic situation while crossing, she has never had the desire to return.

According to Isaura, for unknown reasons, her family was permitted to cross but she would have to be left behind. At the age of six, she would have to discover a way to cross the border without the help of her family who left her at the Mexico/Texas border.

That night, Isaura befriended a woman who crossed her over the next day to leave her with her family who she would spend the rest of her life in Texas with. “She never wanted to go back,” Frances said.

Isaura remained an illegal immigrant until marrying a musician named Manuel Flores at the age of 26. It is unknown, however, if she ever attended school but she does know how to read in Spanish and after much practice, now in English.

To support her family, she worked in the fields for many years picking cotton, hoeing in the fields and picking onions. “There have been times when I have caught her lifting 100 pound bags of cotton,” Frances said. She also said her mother would often plant cotton plants in the front yard and still loves the sight of the unusually white bulbs against the brown and barren lands of West Texas.

Isaura is also very active in her church. She walks the three blocks from her home every Sunday to not miss mass. When some of the neighborhood kids ask her where she is going, “to church,” she always says.

In 1997, at the age of 90, Isaura was once again, left behind.

She said every year the priest takes a group of elderly women to vote and she hated being the only remaining woman left behind.

Because she was not a citizen, Isaura had not been allowed to vote for the majority of her life. “I asked her,” Frances said one day when she realized how upset her mother was to not be able to go. “Do you want to become a citizen?”

“Yes, I do,” Isaura said before lowering her small head like a chastised child.

For two years, Frances and her mother would spend countless hours studying American History and customs. “I was so scared for her,” Frances said. “I didn’t think she would do so well.

“When we went to take the exam, I was so scared for her. She sat, waiting for her turn, she had her rosary in her hands,” Frances said. “She was so calm, I couldn’t believe it.”

On October 13, 1999, Isaura walked into the immigration office and found herself in an oral exam to become a citizen. “She only missed one question,” Frances said. “It was something we didn’t study, but she was sworn in there on the spot.”

Immediately following the exam she asked her daughter if she could now vote. “You have to register,” Frances said.

“Well, then lets go,” Isaura said.

The two drove away from the immigration office, making their way across the city of Lubbock, Isaura silently put the past one hundred years behind her as she registered to vote.

A few short years later, I was lucky to have found her.