PATRICIA

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

“Every girl that I see, I treat her the way I would have wanted to be treated in my quinceañera.”

God puts you on a path for a certain reason, and that is true for me. In 2018, my friend Maria came to my house and told me about her friend who didn’t know how to dance and was planning a quinceañera. Maria had seen me dance and asked if I could help her friends learn.

So, I talked to the eight girls and told them I’d never done it before, but we could try. We rehearsed twice a week for six weeks. I was nervous, but it worked! After that quinceañera, another came to me, then another, and now I’ve been doing this for seven years!

Every quinceañera I do is like having daughters. People tell me I’m much more than a dance instructor because of how I help the girls. I’ve had many shy girls who would not smile, but I showed them they were beautiful and taught them to move like princesses. I really believe in them. When I was young, I wished I had someone say “believe in yourself!” so that’s what I share with the girls.

Some of what I do comes from frustration because I wanted to have a quinceañera – someone gave me a dress and saved some money for it, but my brother stole the money, and my dad was an alcoholic who said “Forget it, we don’t have the money.” Then the day before the quinceañera, my mom fell and broke her leg. So, I spent my quinceañera sitting beside my mother's bed, and no one congratulated me the whole day.

Every girl that I see, I treat her the way I would have wanted to be treated in my quinceañera. God has repaid me and given me all that I wanted, and re-living my memories helps me to live.

I have been a patient of Siloam for five or six years. It helps a lot to have a place that will care for you really well so you can work. I believe I’m in the right place.