Currently, Mireya Bastida works as part of the housekeeping staff at Pomona College. She is happy with the working conditions at the college and the benefits she obtains from her job. Additionally, she enjoys the good co-worker relationships with the other staff and on occasion they gather to celebrate holidays or simply have a get-together. Bastida is at a point in her life where she is happy with her work, her relationship with her family, and herself as a woman. While this is the case, she has always strived to live a life as an independent, strong, family-oriented woman with a job that allows for her to do so.
Bastida was born and raised in Nayarit, Mexico. She is among a group of twelve siblings that were raised cultivating their family’s land along with their father while their mother tended to all the housework. Growing up, and even now, she is very close-knit with her siblings. However, she struggled with some family hardships that drove her to want to make a change in her life in regards to her life choices and her own family. While she loved her family, she did realize the difference in opportunities for the males and females in the house. She was not allowed to go to school with her brothers and was expected to help out with house chores, cultivating lands, and/or anything else her parents needed help with. In her family relations, while she was very close with her siblings and parents, it was hard for them to sometimes express their love to her and she was influenced to make a change. Through those childhood experiences Bastida grew up having to be more independent and decided she wanted to live a more autonomous life in which she could choose how she wanted to live her life.
Therefore, when she was around twenty, she migrated to the United States to have a better life not only for herself, but for the daughter she was pregnant with at the time. At first, Bastida worked in factories where she ended up meeting her husband, who she now has two other daughters with. Throughout her life, Bastida has always worked in various occupations with her longest job being her current position at Pomona College. More than the benefits of the job itself, Bastida has enjoyed what work has been able to do for her in her personal life. Although she is happy with her marriage and her family, Bastida has talked with her husband about the importance for her to feel that she can still be independent and not depend on him for money or anything else. Being at her current job allows her to earn enough to sustain herself and her family. Furthermore, it gives her that feeling of being independent and strong while still being a good mom and giving her family the love she knew her parents had for her, but didn’t always express to her.
Although it has sometimes been hard to manage the things in her life, she has reached a point in which she feels very happy with her hard work and the accomplishments in her life. Now with her three daughters, she hopes to see them work as hard as she has to reach their goals in life in their personal and professional lives. To live life with a good job and as independent women, but to also remember to raise their future families with love and with enough time to do so.
A mí me gusta que mis hijas sean independientes. Así como yo fui yo quisiera que mis hijas fueran porque hemos agarrado ayuda psicológica de parejas y de familia. Yo he aprovechado a veces esas ayudas que ahí aquí en el colegio y si hemos ido a terapia de eso. Yo creo que me ha ayudado mucho eso. Y misma la psicóloga me dijo que yo creo que yo fui criada de una manera que siempre fui independiente. Que no necesitaba de nadie. Si necesito pero tal vez no lo demuestro. Entonces yo problemas que he tenido con mi esposo o algo yo siempre le he dicho yo no necesito. Si estás aquí conmigo estas porque somos pareja pero no porque yo necesito que me mantengas ni que tu necesites que dependes de mi sino que a mí me gusta que tú seas independiente. Y con mis hijas también siempre les he dicho de que tienen que ser independientes