El Salvador

REINA RAMIREZ GOMEZ was granted political asylum from El Salvador in 1989. She works as a live-in nanny in San Diego:

"I couldn't bear the political situation in El Salvador - the confrontations, deaths, houses destroyed. We came as a family group, my sister, her husband, three children, and others. It was hard. We had to pay [to go through] Guatemala, Mexico, and a $500 bond here. Now I make $500 a month and send half of it home. I'm taking English classes.... America means freedom. It means work. That's why we came here. What I really want to do is work in a zoo."