By Tracy Certo, Pittsburgh Quarterly

Grisell Espinoza was in limbo in 2014, wondering whether to stay in Pittsburgh or return to her native Venezuela where political turmoil was getting worse.

Her only friend in town, a fellow Venezuelan, helped her get work at a restaurant until she could find a job in her profession as a civil engineer. But as supportive as her friend was, she still warned her: “This is a country that teaches you to cry.”

Grisell, 32 at the time, was not one to cry — or so she thought. She was working a dead-end job to make ends meet and to learn English, still undecided after a few tough months here. Then her mother, a volunteer for the mayor’s political party where Grisell had also volunteered, called one day from Venezuela in a panic.

Her mother had been driving and noticed a car with men close behind her. Were they after her? She was nervous as she pulled into the nearest gas station and, sure enough, the car followed. While she was still behind the wheel, three men got out of the car and surrounded hers as they attempted to move it just to scare her.

“Stay,” her mom told her after escaping the harrowing incident. “I have a visa. I will visit you.”

Grisell decided to plant roots, but it wasn’t easy. In Venezuela, she was working on vital projects such as public schools and low-income housing. In Pittsburgh, she worked a series of gateway jobs that nearly broke her. Like the job in the Greek restaurant washing dishes, where she broke several. “It destroyed my hands,” she says, “and it destroyed my ego.” She burst into tears after the first shift.

Or working as a nanny for four kids at a household where she was also expected to clean and do laundry — all for $9 an hour. She cried. Often. Or cleaning to make more money. “Never did I think I would find myself on my knees in a dirty bathroom,” she says. She broke down on the spot.

For better or worse, her mother had instilled in her children a sense of pride, she notes. She graduated from one of the top schools in the country for her engineering degree. “I’m not afraid of hard work but it was humbling,” she admits. At one point, her Venezuelan friend told her, “I’ve never seen you cry before!”