Esperanza begins as a very pampered and spoiled daughter of a landowner in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and she has a very privileged life. She has servants, she goes to private schools, and she really has never known any other way to live. She comes from a very loving family, but a series of circumstances happen, and her father is killed, and she must flee to the United States with her mother. She sort of accepts that on face value, but she doesn’t really realize what’s going to happen to her or the change of station that’s going to occur for her in her life.
And so they make this journey. They end up in DiGiorgio Farms in the San Juaquin Valley, living in a farm labor camp and having to share a very tiny cabin with a number of people. The story shows her evolution and how she was forced to grow into an independent, young woman.
