For these young sisters, a period of family, love, and sacrifice

During the pandemic, much of the media’s attention was on the millions of women who left the workforce. But college student Jennifer Ashley Ciballos and her sister Jaelynn, a high school senior, faced a different problem: having to work to keep their multigenerational household afloat. 

They’re part of a demographic that often goes unnoticed: young people from low-income families, often with immigrant parents, whose wages are essential to their households. When the Ciballos sisters’ father lost his job at the start of the pandemic, they juggled their studies with long hours at low-wage jobs to pay the rent and other bills. 

But both sisters also dream of getting college degrees someday, so that they can change their family’s financial trajectory for good. 

“My parents always told me that you only have one family. You have to care for them,” says Jennifer Ashley, who is studying to be a nurse. “I see how my parents are struggling right now and I just want to get them out of it.” 

In this final episode of our podcast “Stronger,” the Ciballos sisters show the lengths we go to support the people we love – even if it means putting our own dreams on hold.

This is Episode 6 of our podcast “Stronger,” which highlights what women have lost to this pandemic and how they’re winning it back. To learn more about the podcast and find other episodes, please visit our page. 

This story was designed to be heard. We strongly encourage you to experience it with your ears, but we understand that is not an option for everybody. You can find the audio player above. For those who are unable to listen, we have provided a transcript of the story below.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

[Music]

Jennifer Ashley Ciballos: My mom, she works as a supervisor in a kind of like a child care slash preschool type of thing. My dad also worked for a charter school, as the cafeteria manager. But then he got laid off because of the pandemic.Jessica Mendoza: When did that happen? Jennifer Ashley: Literally like one month after the lockdown. My mom and dad pulled me to the side and told me that my dad was going to lose his job and that we had to like, figure out how to get money. 

[Music]

Mendoza: Jennifer Ashley Ciballos is 21 years old. She’s a college student on a nursing track. The oldest of four. And she lives with her siblings, parents, and grandparents in a three-bedroom apartment in east Las Vegas.

Samantha Laine Perfas: In this series so far, we’ve talked to women who’ve either lost or left their jobs during the pandemic. Or – in the case of one teacher – thought about quitting.

Mendoza: But today we’re looking at a different issue: Instead of losing jobs, Jennifer Ashley and her younger sister, Jaelynn, had to start working – a lot – to help their family get by. 

Jennifer Ashley: It got real when my parents were saying that we couldn’t pay for our car. That’s how I knew, like the pandemic was really going to shift my priorities as a student and as a daughter because we could not even make ends meet. Like we were not even close to it anymore.

Laine Perfas: We’ve been saying that even though the U.S. is in recovery mode, the pandemic is leaving plenty for us to work through as a society. That’s especially true when it comes to young people like Jennifer Ashley and Jaelynn.

Mendoza: For more than a year, both women have had to manage school, taking care of their younger siblings, and working almost full time. And when you’re balancing paying for bills now versus prioritizing your future –

Laine Perfas: – a future that, hopefully, includes a college degree and a professional job, so that you can give your family a better life? It’s a lot to carry. 

Mendoza: How do you do all that and still hang on to the person you’re trying to become?  

[Theme music]

Laine Perfas: I’m Samantha Laine Perfas. 

Mendoza: And I’m Jessica Mendoza. This is “Stronger.”

What women lost to the pandemic, and how they’re winning

Jennifer Ashley: We’re siblings of four. So there – it goes me, who’s 21, then Jaelynn who’s 17, Janine who is 8, and then Miles who is 2. Jennifer Ashley: Income and money issues are always a topic in our family, unfortunately. Jennifer Ashley: I would have to give half of that to my parents just to make ends meet.Jennifer Ashley: When my mom would get home, she would go straight to cooking. My dad would also clean the entire house, he would do laundry. And then as for my grandparents, they mainly came to the States to help take care of Miles and Janine.Jaelynn Ciballos: I had to take the responsibility of kind of being the second mom. Maybe that’s why I like when I grow up, I low-key don’t want to have kids for a hot minute because I felt like I just ended up raising my little sister and my little brother. Jaelynn: I had a lot of time to do after school activities. I was in sports. I had so much time to study. I had a lot of free time where I could kind of relax and stuff. It sounds pretty boring, but yeah. Jennifer Ashley: I think it’s due to the fact that we’ve shared a room since birth. Jennifer Ashley: We’ve never had our own rooms. And it’s like a bittersweet thing because we never get privacy. But because of that, we’re literally like stuck at the hip. Mendoza: Jaelynn, how would you describe your sister’s style and vice versa? Jaelynn: I don’t know, she’s going to kill me. She has to dress professional, so it’s like her color palette is like browns and neutrals, you know. I don’t know! Like, I can’t say teacher vibes. Because it’s really not teacher vibes. Jennifer Ashley: It’s OK. It’s OK. You can say I dress like a teacher. [laughter]Jaelynn: I don’t know how she would describe my style. Jennifer Ashley: I think Jaelynn’s style is very much, “hip” in what’s happening right now. Like that’s very much her style. It’s OK, Jaelynn. You can say – at one point she said I dress like an English teacher and that’s fine with me. That’s how I like to dress, is very business casual, clean cut and Jaelynn’s over here wearing crop tops, ripped jeans and things like that. She dyes her hair every like two weeks.Jennifer Ashley: I barely make $10 an hour, so I try to scavenge as many hours as I can. Jaelynn: I applied to this coffee shop in late June. I got an interview in July and that’s when I started working. I don’t make a lot either. I only make nine an hour.Jennifer Ashley: When bills arise, usually my mom and dad will shoulder it, like they figure it out.Jennifer Ashley: If we are short, they’ll bring it to us and be like, “Two hundred from Jaelynn, two hundred from me.” I also shoulder the cable and Internet bill. And then on certain months, me, Jaelynn, and my mom, we split the phone bill. Molly Scott: Young people are a vital part of their family economy in one way or another when there’s not enough at home. Scott: And that can mean that the young person actually holds a job, or it can mean that they’re taking on all of the other family responsibilities so that their parents can work two or three jobs to be able to pay the bills, right? Elise Gould: You think about two different students in the economy, one who has to work a job maybe 30, 40 hours a week. They need that money. Compare that with somebody who can devote their entire being to being a full time student.  Gould: Those sacrifices have a cost on their ability to focus, their ability to be fully present in – in all of their activities.Jennifer Ashley: And the birds. [bird squawks LOUDLY]Laine Perfas: The birds! Mendoza: Can you introduce us to them? Laine Perfas: Yeah, which one is which?Jennifer Ashley: Yeah, the one that looks like it’s kind of bald is Grover and then the one I always like barks and sounds really loud is Mango. Maria Ciballos: And there’s another two in there. Laine Perfas: They’re so pretty!Maria: Romeo and Juliet.Jennifer Ashley: Classes really start at 8:30. So I’ll wake up at 7:30 just to make sure that, you know, I’m awake and I’ll have breakfast. Jennifer Ashley: So I can kind of coordinate if I can take my car that day. Most times I can’t. Jennifer Ashley: She’ll end up texting me like, “Hey, do you want to go to the office at 11? I’ll pick you up.” Jennifer Ashley: So I’ll be typing emails, I’ll be texting parents and students if they’re doing OK in school, if they need any resources. We’ll do a lot of printing and things like that. I’m also in charge of events.Jennifer Ashley (ambient): Hello? OK, so you want those two to be on one-pagers and it’s front to back. Correct?[Ambient sound printer]Jennifer Ashley: And that’s basically when I do my homework.  So I’ll tell my parents, “Don’t knock, don’t let Miles yell, you know, make sure the birds are quiet. And during that time I’m really zoned in. So by the time I look up and finish my work, it’s already, I think, 11.Jaelynn: So usually I wake up at six just because I feel like if I don’t wake up early, I will not wake up.Jaelynn: And I’m at school from like 8:30 to 3 o’clock. Jaelynn: And then I go home to change ‘cause my work starts at 5, usually. And so I get dressed and then I eat and then I literally leave. Jaelynn: Either taking orders and making drinks, or like stocking, so that we have enough items to make the drinks.[Ambient of Dutch Bros. coffee shop]Jaelynn: Hey! Sorry, I’m like at work. Laine Perfas: I know, no, it’s OK!Jaelynn: How are you guys today?  Mendoza / Laine Perfas: We’re pretty good. How are you? Jaelynn: Like, right now, I’m like filling up sauce bottles but then sometimes like I’ll be making drinks. But pretty much this is like a typical day.  Laine Perfas: It just feels like nonstop.  Jaelynn: Yeah but I feel like, there’s – it’s really fun though because I’m right now I’m working with my friends and stuff like that.Jaelynn: Did you guys want to get a drink for today? Mendoza: Definitely. Laine Perfas: Yes.Jaelynn: Now I’m treating you guys like you’re my customers.Laine Perfas: We are your customers. That’s our one goal today… Jaelynn: There was this one day where I went home at like 3:30 and I had this assignment due at 4 p.m. Then I had work at 4:30. I had 30 minutes to do like, my entire assignment and turn it in. But yeah, I think also like with my sister working, we kind of like live this same life, we can bond over that. We’ll both be crying because work and school is insane. Jennifer Ashley: I always think about how my friends are 21 and they’re going out. They’re like doing all these things, they’re taking trips – obviously social distancing, we’re still in a pandemic. But they were doing all these things to figure out who they are. And I was stuck thinking about, “When is my next paycheck so I can feed my family?”But on the bright side, though, no matter how bad I feel about how like I’m struggling with the idea of falling behind. There’s days where like – when I first took my whole family out to a buffet and I paid for it. The look on their faces, because they’ve never done that before? I don’t know, it was very – I enjoyed that. So that made everything that I did worth it.Trudy Palmer: Hi, I’m Trudy Palmer, a deputy editor for the Monitor Daily and one of the editors of this podcast series. I don’t know about you, but there was a lot I could relate to in “Stronger.” In this last episode, for example, the sisters’ hectic schedules sounded all too familiar. For most of my life, I’ve worked two or three jobs. That’s not exactly a recipe for work-life balance, but as with these women, you do what you gotta do. I think what that really means is that you do what’s needed for the people you love. That’s what “Stronger” is about – women’s love and strength ... and some ways our society could work better for all of us. If you’ve liked the series, I hope you’ll support more work like this by subscribing to The Christian Science Monitor. Just visit csmonitor.com/subscribe and join our community. Again, that’s csmonitor.com/subscribe. And thanks for listening.Jennifer Ashley: So during the the night time is when we’re all really connecting and kind of relaxing. We don’t really have to think about work. That’s when me and Jaelynn laugh the most. Like we’re always telling about each other’s days. We’ll be at the dining table and then my mom will come in, and then we’ll all be joking around over there. My dad will join in. Jaelynn: Or there are like, Saturdays where I’ll go out with my mom and my sister and we’ll get food and then we’ll bring it home and we’ll watch a movie like in her room. Which is really nice. Jennifer Ashley: Mmhm. And I think there’s there’s very rare days where in the middle of the week, like a random Tuesday or Thursday, that me and Jaelynn both don’t have work. And it’ll be crazy because I’ll have the car, too, that day. So on those rare days, we’ll take Miles and Janine to go get ice cream or we’ll go to like Michael’s and get some crafts stuff. That’ll give my parents and my grandparents some peace of mind for at least like three to four hours, and we’re just like doing a little sibling day. Those days are probably the best. Jennifer Ashley: That was something that was ingrained in me from like a very, very young age. My parents always told me that, you know, you only have one family. You have to care for them. Jennifer Ashley: My parents have never owned anything in their name besides a car. So that’s my first thing to do, is, you know, that’s the only thing really keeping me going – just knowing that if I become a nurse, I can fulfill the dreams my parents had when they were younger. I could do it for them. Jennifer Ashley: I see how my parents are struggling right now and I just want to get them out of it.  Jaelynn: My sister, sometimes she can be so hard on herself. And she’s like, “I’m not doing it right.” But I feel like when I see her, I’m like, dang – she’s really out here, she’s like, grinding. She’s going to work. She’s going to school. Like, college is not easy. Seeing her do those many things and then still being able to care for like, other people is really cool. I think it’s like something that I aspire to be.Jennifer Ashley: Huh. See, that’s where we’re also really different. Like, um, whenever I hear things like that, I cry. But Jaelynn’s like, she’s like, “Oh yeah, I’ll absorb it.” [Music]But what I’m proud about Jaelynn is she’s, like, super selfless. She would skip a bunch of school trips because she knew like, we couldn’t afford it. So even her teachers would be like, “This is a good opportunity for you.” And she’d be like, “It’s fine.” And we would never hear, like, any complaint from her. And at one point I had to give her my clothes, like hand me downs. She would never complain. She would like, rock those fits if she had to. I know there’s days she’ll cry by herself and she’ll break down. And it’s just really crazy because she doesn’t let that, you know, deter her from anything else.  Jaelynn: Dang you got me there. Jennifer Ashley: She’ll just – she’ll just continue pushing. She’ll continue chugging. And like, yeah, I’m proud of you.  Jaelynn: You got me there! You got me there. Jennifer Ashley: I’m proud of you.  Sam: What does it feel like to hear them say all this?  Maria: It’s hard. Because I don’t want to go them to go through this, but sometimes I can’t do anything. And I always let them know that I’m always here for them no matter what. And I know they always cry for me. That’s why it’s so hard for me as a mom to hear all those [things]. Because it hurts me so much.  Erica Mosca: In very clear ways our students are resilient. They – they work full-time jobs to support their families. They stayed home to support their siblings through virtual education. You know, there’s not a lot good about COVID, but one thing that is a positive is people are realizing it’s really hard when we tell people, “Just work hard and you’ll succeed,” when people work hard and they don’t succeed. That those are much bigger structural issues. I think that that’s actually where the work is.[Music]Laine Perfas: What gives you the most hope that we can change as a society and move forward to become a more equitable place?  Mosca: Yeah, people like Jennifer Ashley and Jaelynn, right? You know, Jennifer Ashley, no matter how hard or what is in her way, she will become a nurse. She will become a nurse who cares about the community, who wants to work with populations that other individuals just don’t want to work for or work with. I think same thing with Jaelynn. She will be a leader. She’ll be in charge. The archetype of what is a leader, who is a leader, she will challenge those. She will show you can come from a different background, you can look different and you can be a leader. The only way that I sleep at night is I truly believe we’re empowering the next generation who are going to take on these social issues because they actually experienced it themselves and will be in a position of power to do something about it. Mendoza: Having lived through this past year, but also looking ahead, you know, you’re both working so hard for your family, also trying to achieve your own goals and ambitions. What sort of life do you envision for each other?Maria: Me, for my kids? I want them to achieve what they dream of, like you like finishing school. I’m looking forward to them like doing that and fulfill[ing] that. Jaelynn: For my sister, I want her to do something that she wants to do not because, like, she’s forced to. Because I always feel like she’s always doing things either for me or for just someone else. And I want her to get the job that she wants. And also just like do things just for herself, like not even thinking about anyone else for once.  Jennifer Ashley: It’s hard to think about sometimes – ooh. Ooh!Jaelynn: Oh my gosh, you guys are so –Laine Perfas: It’s OK if you cry. Safe space!Jennifer Ashley: I should’ve went first! Yeah, it’s like a question that’s always in my head. But like, I don’t like saying it out loud because I know I get emotional about it. ‘Cause like, you know, I have a lot of hopes and ambitions for Jaelynn. Like basically what she told me, like, I don’t want her to like, think about anyone else. I want her to just have fun in college. You know, she doesn’t have to worry about what’s going on back home. That’s why I always tell her. Like, if you want to go out of state, you can do it. Obviously, the issue is financial stuff. But I’m pretty sure you can get a ton of scholarships, like shoot for the stars. Don’t let anything hold you back even if we’re here. Like, you’ll be fine, you know?[Music]Laine Perfas: It’s been so great getting to know you guys and getting to know your family. And we’re sorry we made you cry. You’re going to make me cry. [Crosstalk, laughter] Jennifer Ashley: I think it’s good to have these questions because I think there’s a lot of things that we’ve said that we’ve never told each other.  Jaelynn: It’s like very weird. Jennifer Ashley: It’s just – I’m like yeah, we talk to each other with, like, humor. But I don’t think we’ve ever had, like, the real talk of what have we really been through? Like, we actually look at each other and tell each other like, Oh, we’re struggling. So we don’t really have those conversations because obviously this is what happens. [Laughter][Ambient of Dutch Bros. coffee shop]Jaelynn: It’s really good, I would get a Flap Jack, which is salted caramel, vanilla white, and chocolate. And then add Soft Top, which is like a marshmallow fluff, and then put cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkles. Laine Perfas: Oh my gosh. [Laughs]Jaelynn: I don’t know, it’s a pretty good drink!Laine Perfas: I will do that.Jaelynn: Do you know what size?Laine Perfas: A medium. Jaelynn: What else can I get for you guys today?Mendoza: I’ll get the Double Rainbro?Jaelynn: I always get the Double Rainbro, that one’s really good too. You guys are getting all my drinks![Laughter]Dutch Bros. employee: I have your Flap Jack and Double Rainbro. Do you want straws today?Laine Perfas / Mendoza: No thank you, we’re good. Bye Jaelynn!Jaelynn: Bye, thank you!