When Gloria Perez left her home state of Texas 20 years age, she
didn’t know she was headed for San Benito County.
Hollister – When Gloria Perez left her home state of Texas 20 years age, she didn’t know she was headed for San Benito County.
“I just wanted to go to California,” she said. “I was tired of the weather in Texas – the snow and the tornados. I wanted something better for my kids than just picking cotton.”
Leaving behind her parents and seven older brothers and sisters, Perez – who declined to give her age – spent a short time in Salinas before coming to Hollister to live with a relative.
“I liked the quiet little town it used to be,” she said. “Before all these houses got put up.”
To support her three children, Perez took up bartending at the now defunct Smokehouse bar.
The stress of being a single mom coupled with financial hardship began to erode Perez’ relationship with her kids. After two years in Hollister, distraction and carelessness turned to neglect. The state placed her eight-year-old daughter and her sons, age five and three, in foster care.
“At that point, I cared about myself more than I could care about them,” she said. “They were returned to me, a year and a half later, (but soon after) I was homeless. We were living in a car, and I placed them back in foster care myself, because I wanted them to have a home, and a decent meal.”
“It took a long struggle and a lot of pain to get myself back into a place where I could have my kids again,” she continued. “And even then, I never got my daughter back ’til after she graduated high school. But I’m proud of my kids. They went through a lot, they got themselves into some trouble, too. But they all made it through school. They’re all working, and I appreciate them more now that they’re grown up. I can tell them I love them – before I couldn’t say that to them.”
Perez has experienced serious health problems that have affected not only her, but her mother and four sisters as well.
“Even when it gets hard, I wake up every day knowing that I’m here,” she said. “I put a lot of work in my house, I want it to look good. I’ve been through a lot, so I might as well keep going.”
In her spare time, Perez enjoys fishing at the San Justo reservoir, although she confesses it’s an expensive hobby.
“People ask me why I bother when I can go buy fish at the store,” she said. “But it’s not that at all. I go every Sunday, after work, and it relaxes me. I could go out there for hours and hours.”
Perez, who still tends bar (now at the San Benito Hotel), enjoys her work a great deal.
“I like to be around people, I like helping them,” she said. “You meet a lot of interesting people bartending, even if that’s not what I want to do forever.”
“I try to do my best at work. I tell jokes, I make people laugh,” she said. “Sometimes people ask me why. I tell them, ‘some bartender dies, just doing his job, no one cares. You don’t remember who he is. But if I make you laugh, if I help you forget your trouble at home for awhile, you’ll remember me someday.'”
