Javier De La Cruz

García Early College High School | Laredo, TX | 10th Grade

Inspirational Family Member
My Mother

Maria Isabel Contreras was born on September 24,1964 in Laredo Texas. She was born to Rosendo and Maria Contreras and was the second youngest of seven siblings. Her father Rosendo Contreras was an immigrant worker and worked odd jobs to get the money his family needed. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom and would work extra jobs to help support their family. Her mother died when she was four, this left their family without a caretaker and would make them even more poverty stricken. Her father remarried a woman in 1970. Her new stepmother would help provide for the family but would also mistreat her and all of her siblings. Her father paid no attention to this because she would help provide income. 

She passed her first years of school but when she entered high school she had to drop out and help her family as another source of income. She worked as a waiter and eventually as a cook for many restaurants. Nothing really happened in her life for a while until she met her future husband Francisco Javier De La Cruz in 1989. They dated for a year and got married soon after, they started living in Nuevo Laredo. She was an immediate hit with the family, her husband's mother loved her and his sisters and brothers told him that he could not have done better. They opened a restaurant with the help of her mother-in-law in 1992, and her experience working in other restaurants helped her in running hers. She had her first child in 1992, while she was living in Nuevo Laredo. He was named Francisco De La Cruz.

The De La Cruz Family sold their restaurant and moved to the United States to have a better living condition for their new family member and moved to the Laredo, Texas in 1994. They had their second child in 1994, they named her Itzamara De La Cruz. They raised their family with the help of her mother-in-law. Having her mother-in-law taking care of the kids meant that she was able to get a full time job instead of having to be in the house all the time. She got a job as a caretaker and was able to have a steady income and support her family. Their last kid was born in 2003 and his name was Javier De La Cruz. She first voted in the 2006 presidential election and voted for Obama who helped end the terror of terrorism happening in the U.S.

Historical Figure I Admire
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

There were many important figures during the women's suffrage movement, none more influential and revered than Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on November 12,1815 in Johnstown, New York. She was an abolitionist and an important figure in the women's suffrage movement. She wrote the Declaration of Sentiments and was the president of the National Women Suffrage Association for 20 years, in which she worked closely with Susan B. Anthony. This all stemmed from her early life in Johnstown.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the daughter of a lawyer that favored another son over her. She wished to learn many male specialties and interest. She graduated from the Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary in 1832 and was shortly afterwards drawn into many of the women's rights movements by her cousin and fellow reformer Gerrit Smith. She married a fellow reformer Henry Stanton. They had seven children and eventually settled in Seneca Falls, New York. This would lead to her involvement in the fight for women's rights.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the Seneca Falls convention in July of 1848, with the help of Lucretia Mott and many other women. During the convention many women's rights activists came up and signed the “Declaration of Sentiments” and proposed that women should be granted the right to vote. She would write and lecture about women's rights and other reforms. When she met Susan B. Anthony in the 1850's, she would become one of the important figures in promoting women's rights like divorce and the right to vote. During the time of the civil war, she would focus on abolishing slavery but after the war would put a greater emphasis on women's suffrage. She and Susan B. Anthony would form the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Stanton was the president for the NWSA until 1890, when they merged with another suffrage group and formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which she served as president for two years. She wrote many of hers and Anthony's addresses and would write many letters and pamphlets like Amelia Bloomer's Lily, Paulina Wright Davis's Una, and Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. In 1860, she gave an address to the New York legislature granting married women the rights to their wages and to equal guardianship of their children.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton would often give lectures and speeches about women's rights. She worked with Anthony on the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage. She would also work with Matilda Joslyn Gage on other projects. She argued that organized religion played a part in denying women their full rights. She published a critique called the Woman's Bible which was shown major backlash and protest by the religious and many in the woman suffrage movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died on October 26, 1902. She is one of the most memorable figures during the women's suffrage movement and also one of the most important figures that fought for the rights of women all across America. Her speeches influenced and inspired many to join the cause for women's suffrage.

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What the Project Means to Me

I never really understood how hard my mother worked to give my siblings and I a better life than she had. Her stepmother was abusive yet she isn't abusive towards us. She didn't adopt the behaviors that made her miserable, but she learned from them and became a better mother than her stepmother, and she didn't hate her stepmother either and still took care of her in her later years. Before talking to my mom about her life I never really understood how hard being a woman in a poor family could be. Before I just thought that men were the ones that would take care of the family, but when you have a large family with little money everybody had to help out to be able to live and be able to eat. My mom telling me about how she would work her butt off to help the family really made me see her in a new way. I already knew she was a hard working women but knowing how she would work really made me appreciate all she has done to help me and my brother and sister not have to work and focus on our education. I also found out why my mother is so big on education, she was never able to complete hers so she wants us to complete and have an easier life. My mother's life was hard and all the work she did to make it to where, is truly inspiring. Women are stronger than they let on.

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