by Lucía Moreno Nava
Lamar Lucille Arenas is quick to say that although her life has been filled with sadness, she has always been able to see her life as a blessing.
She was born in East LA on October 7, 1954 and grew up with her grandmother. Her mother was a young mother who could not handle raising her 16 children. After the age of 5, Lamar’s strict Catholic grandmother took her to live with her and raised her as a daughter. She credits her grandmother with teaching her her fundamentals of who she is. The house she grew up in had a large backyard that housed Lamar’s step-grandfather’s electrician shop and a small cottage her grandparents rented out.
She remembers her grandfather’s old blue and white Chevy truck and the small trips they would take to the store, the beach, or to the mountains. Although she never knew her father, her step-father always treated her like a daughter and she always saw him as the father figure she needed as a young child. She was never able to find her father, despite attempts to do so.
At the age of 12, Lamar became curious about who her mother was and decided to live with her, but this turned out to be a mistake. Her mother did not care for her and Lamar suffered a neglect that she had not experienced before. She said, “my mother mistreated me, I just, I never knew what I had until I didn’t have it anymore.” When she decided to move back in with her grandmother, things had changed: her grandparents were divorced and her grandmother did not treat her with the love she had before.
She found the family she always wanted when she went into the foster care system a few years into high school. She had started rebelling while at Garfield High School and when she told the officials that she didn’t want to go back home, she was transferred to Pomona where she met Mary Berry. She credits her foster mother, Mary Berry, with making it possible for her to graduate from high school and pushing her to turn her life around.
She got married at 19 and had three kids, but her relationship ended in divorce, despite attempts from both to save the marriage. Despite the turmoil she went through with her ex-husband, she still stayed a part of his life and helped him out after he was diagnosed and passed away from cancer. She explains who she is by saying, “You know, you don’t cut the cord completely. ‘Cause I’m the type of person, I do forgive. And you don’t forget, but you forgive.”
Religion has always been a big part of her life and she always made sure her kids had the option of wanting to include God in their lives.
Lamar has always been a working person, from doing most of the chores in her home as a young girl to starting to work while she went to school at 17. She worked the majority of her time as a house cleaner, but also worked in factories, distribution centers, and even studied to be a switchboard operator. However, despite the various jobs, she kept coming back to housecleaning as she felt this is what she knew best. Her current job as a housekeeper at Pomona College has been the longest job she has held since she first started working. She has enjoyed the interactions she has with students and the atmosphere at the Claremont Colleges.
Lamar doesn’t see herself retiring soon, but she does envision a change in career. She isn’t a “spring chicken” anymore and has been considering going back to school at 59 to become a secretary. She realizes that after a lifetime of putting others’ needs above her’s, she has to look out for herself as well.