“I finally want to tell my immigration story.”
There’s always a twinkle in Antonia Rivas’ eye. Like she has a secret joke she’s waiting to tell you. That must be part of why she’s so great with children. She’s operated a popular daycare out of her home for 17 years.
There’s something else in her eyes, though; also secret and unimaginably sad.
“I’ve never told anyone outside of my family about what brought me to the United States forty years ago,” says Antonia. “But because of all the terrible things being said now about immigrants and refugees, I finally want to tell it.”

Antonia came from a very close family in El Salvador. And although they were poor, the family valued education. “All eleven of us went to school,” she says of herself and her siblings. “We became professionals.” They supported one another. Antonia married young and had her first child in El Salvador just as civil war was brewing there. Her sister and brother-in-law invited her to come live with them in neighboring Nicaragua. They had a successful business there and they were growing their own large family.
“They were Catholic and believed that children are a blessing — especially since their business gave them the financial security to provide. When I came to live with them, they had six kids and my sister was pregnant with their seventh,” says Antonia.
But civil war was brewing in Nicaragua, too. Tragedy was constant.
And soon after Antonia arrived, that tragedy came to her family.
“My brother-in-law was shot and killed in front of us. One of the men chased me out of the house with a rifle, but he couldn’t figure out the safety. I was able to escape. I turned around to see my sister running with my daughter and her son in her arms. Then I saw the blood. They’d shot my sister, too.”
Antonia’s sister and the baby growing inside of her both survived. They all returned to her parents’ home in El Salvador. Antonia promised her sister that she would help her raise the children. But first, Antonia needed to find a safe place for them all to live — and that wasn’t Central America in the late 1970s.
“The whole region was a war zone then,” says Antonia. “I was desperate to get out. When I hear about Syrian refugees — also so desperate — my heart just breaks all over again. I know what they’re going through. I know what it’s like to have all the countries around you also in chaos — when the only option is to try to get into a country that doesn’t want you.”
Check out the TV news coverage of Antonia and Lynneier at Los Angeles’ giant “May Day” March.
Eventually, after bringing her family here one or two people at a time, most of Antonia’s family came to live in the United States. But without doubt, there was lasting trauma. There was the violence of war, but there were also the challenges of immigration.
“None of us wanted to leave El Salvador,” says Antonia. “Some of my family never really adjusted. They were professionals in our country. Educated. They spoke perfect Spanish. Nurses, teachers. Here, they were ashamed of speaking a language they hadn’t mastered. They cleaned houses and earned nothing. They’ve never really recovered from war and losing everything at home. They’d probably love to return, but this is where we all ended up raising our children. Now we have grandchildren here.”
When Antonia first took child development classes here in the States, her professors were always surprised at her knowledge and insight. They’d pull her aside and ask how she came to know so much about children? “I learned it from my father,” she would tell them. “He sort of instinctively knew exactly what kids need.”
Antonia’s father, Chico, was an only child who always wanted to have a lot of kids. “He was never able to finish school,” she says. “But education was the most important thing to him. Back when I was little, he was instrumental in getting a school built in our town. Typically in our culture, it was the moms who would sit down with the children and help with their homework. In my family, though, it was always my dad.”
Chico would often set up a table with fruit or milk for the kids walking home from school. On the last day of the year, he would be ready with homemade “diplomas” for any crying children who’d just learned that they would have to repeat a grade. He’d sit down and write down all the things he noticed about them — “you’re so good in the fields” or “you’re a great baseball player.”
Sadly, in 1986, tragedy came again. In the ongoing chaos and violence in El Salvador, someone put a gun to Chico’s head as he slept. They killed a man who had loved his community and his family. A man who had never been involved in the armed conflict. He was an outspoken activist for education and improvements to his town. And sometimes, when you consistently stand up for good in the midst of so much bad, you become a target.
Chico’s reverence for education still echoes through the family. Antonia’s children, as well as many of her nieces and nephews, are very accomplished, including three lawyers, two medical doctors, one mathematician, three engineers, one nurse and one teacher.
When you visit Antonia’s daycare, some things stand out. She does yoga with the kids. She serves a lot of organic food. There’s great attention to sharing and cooperation. Basically, once you know her story, once you see her center’s hallmark atmosphere of love and peace, you realize:
Antonia is raising the next generation. It will embrace immigrants and refugees.

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Antonia and other Los Angeles area child care providers have formed their union with SEIU Local 99: Education Workers United. They use their collective voice to advocate for families and providers at the local, state and national levels. They seek collective bargaining rights with the state to push for improved standards, increased training opportunities, better pay and working conditions and increased access for families to the quality care they provide. To learn more, please visit www.seiu99.org.


