“I believe that we put the stops and brakes in our own mind - we block ourselves,” says Rosa Elena Ulloa. “We can get and go wherever we want - we just have to “ponerle ganas.” Rosa learned this truth because she has lived it. Coming to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago, she started to work in the cleaning business. “When I first moved I used to clean houses,” she says. After seven months of the work, she knew she had to do something
different to give herself and her son a better future. “I saw that I did not make much money so I needed to move on, she says.”“I always wanted to drive a big truck,” says Rosa, who grew up in a little pueblo in Zacatecas, Mexico. Her father taught her how to drive when she was only seven years old. “I used to go with my dad to work in the fields and I always drove trucks in my town,” she remembers. “In Mexico, my mother sometimes was a little upset because I never learned things that girls usually have to learn,” add Rosa. “But my mom was and is very supportive.”
Rosa’s husband, Pablo, never thought that Rosa will be thinking to drive a big truck. “My husband’s friends sometimes criticized us, or made jokes to him,” she says. “In our culture not many women are driving big trucks.” When Rosa asked Pablo for help to get her driver’s license, he was totally supportive of her. “He is my mentor - he helped me with my training and gave me tips,” says Rosa.
Rosa started to work for the Matheson company in Oakland. She began working in their maintenance department, checking the trucks, the diesel fuel, and then driving unloaded trailers between branches. After awhile she started to drive loaded trailers to different cities in California and Nevada. She’s been driving for five years and is the only women among the 24 drivers in the Oakland branch.
“My co-workers are very nice - they do not discriminate,” she says.
Co-worker Juan Barragan says he admires all women and knows that they are capable of doing anything, “Especially women like Rosa who are strong, set goals and achieve them,” he says. Juan says he also admires Rosa because of the dangers involved in driving 53 feet of truck and trailer: Driving in the middle of the night or when the highways are covered in snow or sleeping in the truck in remote locations when bad weather force trucks to stay off the roads.
It’s a serious job with a lot of responsibility, but anyone can see Rosa’s passion and excitement for the job and her achievement.
“My first day at work was amazing,” remembers Rosa. At the end of her driving test for the company, the manager told Rosa that he saw her interest in the job and told her that she could start working right away. Rosa could not believe it. She thought it was a joke, but she knew it was not a joke when she was driving the big trailer on the 880 freeway to Sacramento. “I was so excited on the freeway,” she remembers. “I was laughing and crying at the same time,” she says. “I thought about my son and my parents, and I wished that they could be with me at that moment. That was a big moment for me - I was doing what I always wanted to do.”