Making her homeland’s native dish to eat and share helped Julie Lopez deal with homesickness and regret of the life she left behind in El Salvador, when she first immigrated to San Diego. Now, making that dish, Pupusas, is how she’s managed to make a life for herself and her family here in one of the nation’s most expensive regions.

As a 20-something who was a few classes shy of a university degree, Julie made the daunting decision to leave home in 1997. She was pregnant and the news wasn’t welcomed by her family or the community. Viewed as a stigma and source of shame, Julie couldn’t continue her education and her future prospects of a career and financial sustainability in El Salvador were bleak. She had been studying public relations and she was working at a local television station then.

“It hurt to leave,” she said. “I still think that one day I’ll finish my degree, it’s not too late right?” Julie said.

Her father and oldest sister were already settled in San Diego, having emigrated in the 1980s after a brutal civil war that dissolve any family wealth. So her sister encouraged Julie to join them in the United States. At the time it was far easier to secure a visa, so she did. Julie was 24 years old, five months pregnant and it was her first time on a plane.

Above is her story and that of two other women who left their home countries because of dire conditions and found their way here in the U.S.