'Symbol of leadership' for migrants

When Pomona Mayor Norma Torres returned to Guatemala in October, it was the first time she had been back to her native country since she was a child.

But Torres got a hero's welcome.

As she toured the country she barely remembered, people everywhere recognized her on the streets.

"She's the mayor of Pomona," they said. Some brought magazines with her picture on the cover and asked for an autograph. They called her "the pride of Escuintla," her hometown, and "the hope of all migrants."

Crowds were so thick that the government sent police to escort her from town to town.

"It was like being a rock star," Torres said.

At one event, as she and her husband, Louis, got into an SUV, they were mobbed by people who threw handwritten notes into the vehicle. Some of the notes were pleas for help from people wanting to come to the United States.

Torres, 42, was deeply moved. After all, these were the same dreams her parents had for her.

"They sent me here for a better life," she said. "They wanted me to have a good job and maybe own a home."

Torres would achieve more than her parents imagined. In December, she became the first person outside Guatemala to be awarded the Order of the Great Knight, the country's highest honor.

Torres was only 5 years old in 1970 when her parents sent her to live with an uncle in Southern California. Guatemala was nearly a decade into a 36-year civil war that would leave hundreds of thousands dead and tens of thousands missing.

Torres' father, Samuel Barillas, 72, who now lives in Alhambra, feared for his family's safety because of the dangerous political climate. "The situation was so difficult at the time," he said. "Any little thing could bring an accusation, and one would have to suffer the consequences. I didn't want that for my daughter."

Torres has only a handful of memories of the country she left behind: her grandmother's house, where she would sneak after midnight and curl up next to her abuelita; the fairy tales her grandfather told; and the winding steps that led from her family's house to the fields of sugar cane where her father worked.

"I remember all the green and open fields," Torres said.

In California, she lived with her uncle and aunt, Everardo and Julia Barillas, in Whittier, a quiet suburban community once known as "the city of trees." It was a world away from Escuintla.

"Everything was very organized," she said. "I wasn't used to seeing streets lined with homes."