Alma Hernandez

Alma Hernandez misses her children. Alma and her husband came to the United States for a chance at the American Dream, but after many years of struggling to build a good future for their children, they've been unable to unite their family in Houston. As a janitor for One Source earning only $5.15 an hour, saving up enough money to bring her two children from Mexico is difficult.

"We are paid very little and do a lot of work," she says. "We all want to improve our families' situations."

Alma lives with her husband and 3-year-old son. "We dream of being able to buy a house and having enough money to bring our remaining children," she says.

Alma has been working for the same company for five years; still she struggles to make ends meet. "Sometimes we don't buy groceries so that we can pay all of our bills. We do what we can because we don't want them to turn off our electricity or have bad credit."

Health care is also a serious issue for the family. After 12 years of working hard in this country, neither Alma nor her husband have access to affordable health care through their employers. "Not having health care is a real problem because we're forced to go to the hospital and they charge you a lot there. My husband has chest pains and he needs to see a cardiologist." He will have to wait a month and a half before his doctor's appointment.

Alma knows life will never be easy, but says "winning a good contract could really help us out." "What makes us work is our children's education." Alma wants them to go to school so they can find a good job--"not like the ones we have, which we can barely survive on."