Many people don’t give immigrants the credit that they deserve. Leaving your native country to search for a better life somewhere else is not an easy task. It takes a lot of courage to do so, especially if you’re a 9-year-old girl from El Salvador during the 1980’s. That’s the story of Xiomara Torres, the newly appointed family law judge in the Multnomah County Circuit Court of Oregon.
Mrs. Torres was just a child when her mother took her, along with her brother and sister, out of a wartorn El Salvador. The family boarded a plane to Tijuana, Mexico, and with the help of a ‘coyote‘, they walked through miles of wilderness into our country, where they reunited with their father in Los Angeles to start a new life in America.
Who would have guessed that 37 years later, Torres would add a much-needed diversity to the Oregon judiciary system, where only 2% of the 200 state judges have a Latino background despite having a 13% Hispanic population in the state. But her journey was not without peril, as you might have already guessed.
By age 13, Torres and her siblings were placed in foster care after Torres reported to have suffered from abuse by one of her relatives. The siblings were separated by the state and Torres was all alone in unforgiving circumstances.
Torres found solace in books. If there was anything she could do to better her situation, it was to study as hard as she could to secure some kind of stability for herself. By the time she turned 18 and was placed outside foster care on her own, Torres, against all odds, enrolled herself at the University of California Berkeley to study sociology.
She became one of the less than 3% of kids who earn a college degree after leaving foster care, avoiding the homelessness that affects 20% of those leaving the state’s care. She also dodged the expected pregnancy that occurs to 71% of young foster girls before turning 21.
Jan Brice was the court-appointed special advocate that looked after Torres during her foster care years and remained friends with her long after that. “Even though she was a pretty frightened young girl, I could see her inner strength that day,” Brice told Oregon live.
“I believe she came into this world as a very strong soul,” said Brice. Torres’ friendship with Brice is probably what inspired her to pursue a career in family law. By doing so, Torres would be able to give back to the vulnerable community that she hailed from.
“To me, the message to immigrant children and to any immigrant is that you can make the U.S. a better place and you can contribute,” Torres told Oregon Live. “I want immigrant kids, foster kids, to know that they can go to law school. They can become attorneys. They can become judges.”
Hopefully, Mrs. Torres’ inspiring and heartwrenching story can reach the masses, and touch as many people as possible so they can feel empowered to follow their dreams, too.