This year, Olivia Lopez was called in to translate for an inconsolable Central American mother held at a detention center with other immigrant families.
Lopez recalled that the woman “would not stop crying.” Clinic staff members explained why.
“The story I was told was she was a prostitute back in her home country and was worried she was pregnant,” she said.
Lopez, a 57-year-old licensed social worker, grew up speaking Spanish. She began asking the woman what was wrong, and an entirely different story emerged of the woman’s life back in Central America.
“What she told me was when she would walk home, a man would rape her repeatedly and she ran away to get away from him,” Lopez said.