Mom immigrated to this country from Central America in 1954. Before leaving, standing on the tarmac ready to board her flight, she told her family "un día volveré por ustedes" (one day I will return for you). Which she did, securing immigration papers for three siblings, two nephews and her mother. Once in the U.S., Mom worked for 60 years, until finally retiring 10 years ago at the age of 80. Over six decades, she worked for an insurance company and a bank. She worked as a teaching assistant in Los Angeles and as a computer coder at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. An accomplished seamstress, she sewed clothes for me and my three siblings when we were kids. She was a Cub Scout den mother and the regional director of a nonprofit organization called Amigos de las Americas. When a devastating 7.5 earthquake struck Guatemala in 1976, killing over 20,000 people, Mom helped organize the Bay Area relief effort. To end her long career, she put in 30 years working for a local Clerk Recorder's office. She also put up with my Father for over 25 years - in itself, no small accomplishment. Once single, she bought not one but two houses. When the banks came for those two houses during the Great Recession, she fought back - reaching out to then California Attorney General Kamala Harris to save one house and working with her attorney son to smack the other bank silly until they realized this wasn't a woman to mess around with. To this day, Mom's a fantastic cook and baker. Many of her ingredients, including fresh vegetables, fruits and herbs come from a garden she tends every day. Women like Mom have made and continue to make this country what it is. Which is why she came here all those years ago, knowing that if she was going to dream big, there was somewhere else she needed to be. Today, in her dreams, Mom claims that she can still smell the fragrance of the coffee fields dotting her homeland. But, there is something else she senses - victory, tomorrow, in the form of the first female President of the United States.